The proposals for the site were read to Newport Pagnell Rural District council on Wednesday 29 May 1957 at Little Linford.

Four service stations on the M1 were planned - each of 10 acres (4.0 ha) - Toddington, Newport Pagnell, Rothersthorpe, and one near Ashby St Ledgers in Northamptonshire.

Against the alcohol licensing were Superintendent Laurence Harman, of the local police, and Brigadier Sir Richard Gambier-Parry, who had business interests in breweries in Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire.

[4][5][6] Other opposition included the vicar (Rev J.J. Williams, who admitted that he was not a teetotaller) from the local PCC, representatives from the Buckingham branch of the Women's Total Abstinence Union (Mrs G Greenstreet from Penn, Buckinghamshire),[7] the Baptist (Rev Arthur Davies) and Methodist churches; in the UK, the temperance movement was supported by the nonconformist churches, such as the Methodists or Quakers.

Grantham North services, as Tony's Cafe, was granted a table licence for its restaurant, by local magistrates, in April 1968.

Mr H Henshall, the managing director, said that there would be a snack bar, a self-service unit, and a grill and griddle, with waiter service.

The service station is one of fourteen for which large murals were commissioned from artist David Fisher in the 1990s, designed to reflect the local area and history.

[16] The first crash barriers on British motorways were built, at a cost of £2 million, southwards from Newport Pagnell to Scratchwood from May 1971, being finished in late October 1971, as far north as the M6 junction in Northamptonshire.